kiwichick wrote:the rate of change is like the difference between hitting a brick wall in your car at 10 kpm compared to hitting it at 100 kpm........all sorts of messy things happen in the later case.

In all fairness I doubt it has as much weight as you credit it with. For example what exactly do you think will happen when the northern tundra enters the new climate regime? Do you think the mosses/grasses/sedge's that live their now will suddenly experience a mass die off?

Generally as a rule of thumb when a Permafrost region changes over to a winter frost summer warm cycle you get a lot of slumping at first as the permafrost melts and the landscape changes shape. That is not devastating for life however, even the plants on the slumping soil will often remain established, just at a slightly lower altitude. The stories that get the headlines are where the permafrost slumps into the sea or a lake or river and the soil washes away, but those are not the vast majority of cases. In the vast majority of cases the portions of land that have the biggest slumps become ponds while the adjoining areas that have less slumping spill their melt water into the new pond formations. This creates new aquatic habitat that after few years develop into pond ecosystems as migratory birds drop seeds from further south in their feces and fishing birds like Eagles and Osprey also spread fish in otherwise isolated ponds. Next those hills surrounding the ponds start growing a more diverse set of plants, also from seeds excreted by migratory birds and wind blown in big storms. A typical North American thunderstorm can carry seeds hundreds of miles, even up to a thousand kilometers if you prefer metric. Plant reproduction is based on producing thousands of seeds with the expectation that one or two will germinate and survive long enough to reproduce. An updraft thunderstorm can pick up billions of seeds at a time and carry them along until it loses energy, scattering seeds, dropping some and picking up others as it travels. The tree line hasn't moved very far north yet because the climate is not warm enough to support trees. However as soon as the climate will support trees that will change. IIRC you live in New Zealand? A few years back I posted about the crazy attempts to eliminate invasive pine tree species from New Zealand, which is currently a high tech battle against nature. None of the types of trees in question were native to New Zealand, and yet because the environment is ideal for them their seeds are colonizing new areas very rapidly. This scares the daylights out of some so called environmentalists who convinced the government of your country to 'fight the invasive species' leading to very large sums of money being spent on public lands. However the trees on private lands are private property and every year they release millions of seeds that wind and birds scatter into areas those threes can grow and prosper. This makes the battle against the invasives nothing but a stalling tactic, sooner or later the government will either run out of money or just give up and when that happens those suitable public lands will become public forest lands. In Denali national Park, Alaska something of the same sort has taken place with Dandelions. Dandelions are native to Europe and have actually been grown as a crop in many places there for centuries. They migrated to the east coast of North America along with the seeds for deliberately introduced European crops like pasture grasses, wheat/oats/rye/barley and because they are excellent wind spread colonizers they made it across the continent to the west coast faster than the Europeans who traveled to the west coast in large numbers in the 19th century. Alaska first received Dandelions around the mid 20th century when Americans started trying to grow hardy grains like Barley near Anchorage and the suburban schtick caused Alaskans to plant lawn grasses imported from the lower 48. As a result Dandelions have been spreading through Alaska for about 7 decades now and about 15 years ago they invaded Denali National Park. I know because at the time the National Park Service put out a plea for volunteers to help them uproot and eliminate the dandelions which are by definition an invasive species in North America. They spent millions of dollars and thousands of man hours sending ranger lead groups of volunteers out in an attempt to eliminate every Dandelion in the park. The problem is Dandelions are now well established all around the southern end of the park, so every year new seeds blow into the park.

Natives and Invaders: The Dandelion Story

There are nine native dandelion species in Alaska (five in Denali). They differ in several ways from the non-native species (see photos at left). The non-native dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is the most prevalent non-native species in the park.

Each plant disperses up to 200 windborne seeds. It grows in disturbed areas along the park road, but thus far hasn’t shown any ability to invade native habitats. With the help of volunteers, the control efforts focus on keeping the investation from spreading beyond the Savage River (Mile 15). Hundreds of pounds of dandelions are removed by digging each year.

Denali’s five species of native dandelions (top photo) have shorter, narrower leaves clustered closer to the ground compared to the non-native dandelion (bottom photo). In addition, the bracts (leaf-like structures under the flower head) of native species cup the flowers, while on the non-native species, these bracts point down.

The five species pictured and described below are the highest-priority targets for eradication.Here are ways to assist the EPMT in identifying new invasives and in preventing the spread of invasives that have arrived in Denali.

I know the Park management and rangers are doing what they believe is best, but could there be anything more labeled as a "First World Problem" than government resources being used in an impossible battle against the power of Nature to spread species around? Especially when there are people suffering from insufficient food and medical resources in the same first world country?

Nature bats last, whenever the well intentioned but pointless efforts finally cease Nature will still be spreading the seeds for all these plants. The article at the link even tacitly admits that well established invasives never go away permanently and require renewed effort every year to control.

So when the Tundra thaws you will see a wave of invasives from further south. The wave will be everything from the humble Dandelion to mighty pines native to the Taiga zone that borders the tundra today. While it will take decades for trees to grow to maturity the smaller plants will be established on a vanishingly short timespan. I just hope the Polar Bear figure out they can eat hearty on a lot of the plants that will soon arrive in their zone. Once the sea ice goes they will have to adapt to a strictly terrestrial diet like their cousins the Brown, Black and Grizzly bears. It has been suggested that if scientists would place some Polar Bear cubs with foster mothers of the other species they would learn the necessary skills growing up to survive as terrestrial species instead of the semi-aquatic pattern they now exhibit.

One last word about invasives, which pretty much includes all the species gardeners and farmers classify as 'weeds'. They move into newly available territory and do several things. They stabilize loose soils slowing erosion. Most of them have deep tap roots that bring moisture and nutrients to the top of the soil column. Also those tap roots serve as pathways for soil bacteria and add organic carbon to the soil when the 'weed' dies. All of these effects act together and create a micro-ecosystem where less invasive species can colonize successfully. Here in the midwest every time a small farm in an isolated spot goes out of business the cleared fields revert to weeds the very first spring after they are abandoned. That stabilizes the soil and lets the grasses colonize creating a pasture type environment. If nobody intervenes within five years there are small shrubs and bushes appearing all over the pasture and in a decade post abandonment there are young trees across the former fields. The climate here is ideal for forests so any abandoned property reverts rapidly back to that condition. Further west in Iowa where the natural ecosystem is grassland biome the fields follow the same pattern of weeds and then grasses, but they do not progress on to shrubs and then forest. The vast Arctic slope tundra will do the same thing, and far far faster than most people imagine is possible. The parts where trees can grow will become forest and other places will revert to grasslands. It will be different from the Tundra of today, but it won't be an ecological wasteland.

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Mosses and mass dieoff. Well, that is essentially what happens when a new pond forms from melting permafrost. The Yamal peninsula will be going through a regime of surface inundation and massive concurrent CH4 release. The drainage timescale for the mass of new ponds is not clear but it will be much longer than a few years since a lot of the terrain is very flat. The ponds will also increase the regional albedo, which will accelerate the melting and hence new pond formation and CH4 blowouts.

Fobbing off the rate of warming and greenhouse gas release is simply ignorant. The equilibrium state is not the only relevant one. All the metastable and transient states are just as relevant. It is clear that the ocean surface warming transition is happening extremely quickly. That is, the shutdown of heat exchange with deeper waters is occurring faster than during previous warming events. The essential shutdown of heat pumping into the deep is very similar to a brick wall in the middle of the road. There will be a step function transition (compared to previous cases) in atmospheric warming which from current data is likely to occur before 2100.

The global ocean stores more than 90% of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming1, 2, 3, 4. Using satellite altimetry observations and a large suite of climate models, we conclude that observed estimates of 0–700 dbar global ocean warming since 1970 are likely biased low. This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions5, 6, 7. We find that the partitioning of northern and southern hemispheric simulated sea surface height changes are consistent with precise altimeter observations, whereas the hemispheric partitioning of simulated upper-ocean warming is inconsistent with observed in-situ-based ocean heat content estimates. Relying on the close correspondence between hemispheric-scale ocean heat content and steric changes, we adjust the poorly constrained Southern Hemisphere observed warming estimates so that hemispheric ratios are consistent with the broad range of modelled results. These adjustments yield large increases (2.2–7.1 × 10^22 J yr−1) to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.

Now a new analysis by three ocean scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory not only confirms that the extra heat has been going into the ocean, but it shows where. According to research by Veronica Nieves, Josh Willis, and Bill Patzert, the waters of the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean warmed significantly from 2003 to 2012. But the warming did not occur at the surface; it showed up below 10 meters (32 feet) in depth, and mostly between 100 to 300 meters (300 to 1,000 feet) below the sea surface. They published their results on July 9, 2015, in the journal Science.

Changes in upper ocean stratification during the second half of the 21st century, relative to the second half of the 20th century, are examined in ten of the CMIP3 climate models according to the SRES-A2 scenario. The upper ocean stratification, defined here as the density difference between 200 m and the surface, is larger everywhere during the second half of the 21st century, indicative of an increasing degree of decoupling between the surface and the deeper oceans, with important consequences for many biogeochemical processes. The areas characterized by the largest stratification changes include the Arctic, the tropics, the North Atlantic, and the northeast Pacific. The increase in stratification is primarily due to the increase in surface temperature, whose influence upon density is largest in the tropical regions, and decreases with increasing latitude. The influence of salinity upon the stratification changes, while not as spatially extensive as that of temperature, is very large in the Arctic, North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific. Salinity also significantly contributes to the density decrease near the surface in the western tropical Pacific, but counteracts the negative influence of temperature upon density in the tropical Atlantic.

I just posted this on the Oceans&Seas thread, but it's relevant here...in previous warmings:"...within only 130 years the oceans underwent devastating changes that led to complete collapse of invertebrates on the seafloor. More worryingly, the fossil records show that ecosystem recovery took at least 1,000 years..."

Most, and perhaps all, previous mass extinctions were caused primarily by global warming events. Those claiming that our current GW event will not cause devastation to ecosystems have to explain why it would be different from these earlier events in the geological record.

The geologic evidence from the new core did not show a lag, the new study reports. That means, the authors estimate, that while a gigantic volume of carbon entered the atmosphere during the PETM — between 2,000 and 4,500 billion tons — it played out over some 4,000 years. So only about 1 billion tons of carbon were emitted per year. In contrast, humans are now emitting about 10 billion tons annually — changing the planet much more rapidly.

“"If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money"”

The geologic evidence from the new core did not show a lag, the new study reports. That means, the authors estimate, that while a gigantic volume of carbon entered the atmosphere during the PETM — between 2,000 and 4,500 billion tons — it played out over some 4,000 years. So only about 1 billion tons of carbon were emitted per year. In contrast, humans are now emitting about 10 billion tons annually — changing the planet much more rapidly.

The shock warming and accumulation of GHGs will itself produce negative consequences. There is no free lunch. Driving the system at 10x the rate of past global warming events is not a side issue. I am beginning to see it as the core issue. If we were dumping 1 billion tons of carbon (or 3 billion tons of CO2) per year we would be in a much better position to reverse our damage and to weather any consequences.

We should not forget that the system is nonlinear. So a 10x forcing rate does not imply a 10x response rate (in temperature, etc.). We could see an Nx rate where N >> 10 at some stage.

dissident wrote:Mosses and mass dieoff. Well, that is essentially what happens when a new pond forms from melting permafrost. The Yamal peninsula will be going through a regime of surface inundation and massive concurrent CH4 release. The drainage timescale for the mass of new ponds is not clear but it will be much longer than a few years since a lot of the terrain is very flat. The ponds will also increase the regional albedo, which will accelerate the melting and hence new pond formation.

Pretty much what I said about North America, thanks for the confirmation of physics. Of course the drainage time is highly variable and may effectively turn into wetlands on long timescale or may dry out much more rapidly than you expect. A very great deal depends on the temperature and humidity that prevail after the climate steps up to the next level.

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

But the many sober-minded scientists I interviewed over the past several months — the most credentialed and tenured in the field, few of them inclined to alarmism and many advisers to the IPCC who nevertheless criticize its conservatism — have quietly reached an apocalyptic conclusion, too:

No plausible program of emissions reductions alone can prevent climate disaster.

But the many sober-minded scientists I interviewed over the past several months — the most credentialed and tenured in the field, few of them inclined to alarmism and many advisers to the IPCC who nevertheless criticize its conservatism — have quietly reached an apocalyptic conclusion, too:

No plausible program of emissions reductions alone can prevent climate disaster.

Climate flip is unstoppable. The longer we perpetuate the idea that humanity can do something to stop what we have set in motion the longer it will be before we prepare to pass through the bottleneck to the other side.

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

At some stage the optics of not-giving-a-flying-f*ck about global warming will start to seriously eat away at any remaining US "global leadership" aspirations. So Trump is being pressured to at least pretend to care and go through some token motions that mean zilch in terms of dealing with the problem or even trying to.

“We found there are four actions that could result in substantial decreases in an individual’s carbon footprint: eating a plant-based diet, avoiding air travel, living car free, and having smaller families. For example, living car-free saves about 2.4 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, while eating a plant-based diet saves 0.8 tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year.

“These actions, therefore, have much greater potential to reduce emissions than commonly promoted strategies like comprehensive recycling (which is 4 times less effective than a plant-based diet) or changing household lightbulbs (8 times less effective).”

The researchers also found that neither Canadian school textbooks nor government resources from the EU, USA, Canada and Australia highlight these actions, instead focussing on incremental changes with much smaller potential to reduce emissions.